Words to live by

The Whited Mama sent me these in an email this weekend.  Most of them relate to the difficulty of holding unpopular opinions. 

This last one wasn't in the email, but was on a little pedestal frame that she put on my dresser when I was a kid. 

I do love my Amam.  (Amam = "Mama" backwards.  Long, convoluted Patterson story.) 

Richard Dawkins - "The Magic Of Reality"

From Richard Dawkins' new book, The Magic Of Reality.  The book is obviously for children, or possibly for those of us with a religious fundamentalist upbringing who need little reminders from time to time to avoid slipping back into religious tribalism. 
Those are the two reasons why I'll probably buy it. 
Parts of this fable that Dawkins shares in his book might sound familiar.  Names, characters, gods, and incidents are the products of the pre-civilized imagination.  Any resemblance to actual events, characters, gods and incidents, living or dead is entirely coincidental.   

Utnapashtim told Gilgamesh of an occasion, many centuries earlier, when the gods were angry with humankind becase we made so much noise they couldn't sleep. 

The chief god, Enlil, suggested that they should send a great flood to destroy everybody, so the gods could get a good night's rest.  But the water god, Ea, decided to warn Utnapashtim.  Ea told Utnapashtim to tear down his house and build a boat. 

It would have to be a very big boat, because Utnapashtim was to take into it 'the seed of all living creatures'. 

Utnapashtim built the boat just in time, before it rained for six days without stopping.  The flood that followed drowned everybody and everything that was not safely inside the boat.  On the seventh day the wind dropped and the waters grew calm and flat. 

Utnapashtim opened a hatch in the tightly sealed boat and released a dove.  The dove flew away, looking for land, but failed to find any and returned.  Then Utnapashtim released a swallow, but the same thing happened. 

Finally Utnapashtim released a raven.  The raven didn't come back, which suggested to Utnapashtim that there was dry land somewhere and the raven had found it. 

Eventually the boat came to rest on a mountaintop poking out of the water.  Another god, Ishtar, created the first rainbow, as a token of the gods' promise to send no more terrible floods. 

So that is how the rainbow came into being, according to the ancient legend of the Sumerians..... In fact, it is obvious that the Jewish story of Noah is nothing more than a retelling of the older legend of Utnapashtim.  It was a folk tale that got passed around, and it travelled down the centuries.  We often find that seemingly ancient legends have come from even older legends, usually with some names or other details changed. 

Go here to read a story about a Dutch Creationist who built a full-size "replica" of the ark from the Noah story.  
Go here to read what percentage of Americans believe that this story is literally true.  (Noah's, but not Utnapashtim's.)

The pics of Utnapashtim came from here and here and here and here and here. 

Why I am a Libertarian, part 4, Ruby Sue Issa edition ! ! !

Because of reconnecting with old friends on Facebook, I've been doing a series of posts about what makes someone go from political near-apathy to rabid Libertarian.  You can hit the "Why I'm A Libertarian" label down below if you want to see the others. 

From the 3rd grade to the 12th, I was educated in a small private school in north Mississippi called North Sunflower Academy.  At NSA, generations of students learned history and social studies from a lady named Ruby Sue Issa. 

By the time the class of '79 came along, Mrs. Issa had been at it for decades.  She had a list of stories and anecdotes that she used to illustrate the topic of the day.  Most of them had been in circulation for a while, and for the most part we were all too cool to pay much attention.  But some of it, against all odds, sunk in.  Or maybe it sank in.  Sunk? Sank?  Should've paid more attention in English.  I have no idea which one is the past tense.  Mrs. DuBard, please advise.... 

I remember Mrs. Issa talking about the U.S. Constitution, and the issue of illegal search and seizure.  One of Mrs. Issa's stories had the Mississippi Highway Patrol pulling someone over for speeding, and they pumped his stomach because they thought he ingested a baggie of some sort.  Mrs. Issa was outraged. 

Our class, however, didn't understand the outrage.  Even those who had "illegal smiles" knew, just knew that if you were carrying weed or anything else, that's just the risk you take.  Why, if the Highway Patrol can't pump your stomach, how are they supposed to do their jobs?  Plus, regardless of lifestyle choices, we we knew that all badness must be punished by any means necessary. 

But Mrs. Issa planted a seed that day, and it grew into this:  I belong to me, and you belong to you.  I own myself, you own yourself.  We don't belong to King George III, George Washington, George Bush, Barack Obama, or The Mississippi Highway Patrol.  This is mine, dang it.  Keep your grubby little hands off of it.

She did her best to teach us about the Constitution and how it shouldn't be abused, even if intentions were good.  She saw history as a long, long story that kept looping around and repeating itself.  A story where people kept making the same types of mistakes over and over again.  The purpose of the Constitution was to be sure that we avoided those mistakes in the future, regardless of the "emergency". 

Before Mrs. Issa started teaching me, I used to wish that I had grown up in a place where history happened.  Somewhere near Civil War battlefields, or New York City, or anywhere except the Mississippi Delta. 

Mrs. Issa told us about what it was like when her husband's cafe in Ruleville was first integrated, and what a big change that was for her.  She told us about the sit-ins and the Freedom Riders.  This was in a segregationist academy, and Mrs. Issa was a product of her time and place, just like all of us were (and still are) regarding race, but I think she kinda enjoyed holding up contradictions between our supposed ideals and our actions.

Bob Fisher and I both remember the time she told us that "All barbarian invasions come from....The North."
 
She told us (multiple times) about Bob Dylan coming to Greenwood in 1963, and playing "Only A Pawn In Their Game" at a Civil Rights rally.  We didn't get it.    By 1978/1979, Bob Dylan was as dated as Bing Crosby, and by the standards of the time, Bob Dylan couldn't sing.  (I now own every non-bootleg Bob Dylan has ever recorded, BTW.)

But because of Mrs. Issa, it eventually dawned on me that I was growing up in a place where important things were happening.  I was in The Most Southern Place On Earth, the Ground Zero of our biggest societal change since the Civil War.  I started paying attention to the news, and seeing U.S. history as a story of our progress toward liberty - first for white landowners, then for white men, then for black men, then for women, then for gays, lesbians, people who want to smoke weed, people who don't want to buy health insurance, people who own 200 guns, or guys who want to put on womens' clothing and walk around the mall. 

I own me, you own you.  If it doesn't harm you, it's none of your business. 

So it has taken me about 30 years to figure it out and to acknowledge it.  Thank you, Mrs. Issa.  Some of us really were paying attention.  It sunk in.  Or sank in. 

Mrs. Issa's picture came from Duff Dorrough's Facebook page.  One other thing....Mrs. Issa was a huge fan of Teddy Roosevelt.  Here's a picture of President Roosevelt riding a swimming moose, just in case you ever need one. 

Claude Marshall LaMastus - R.I.P.

One of my best friends ever was the late, great Stan Norwood of Drew, Mississippi. We met in kindergarten. Stan lived next door to a guy named Claude Marshall LaMastus, who was about 12 years older than we were.

This is the story of how, back in the early 1980's, Stan got Claude to the hospital after a uhmmm....hunting trip. But first, some background.

When we were about 14 or 15, Claude Marshall had a terrible car accident. He was coming home from Clarksdale, ran off the road, flipped his car, and was thrown through the sun roof. Claude was paralyzed from the waist down.

Claude hadn’t had much to do with Stan and me until the accident. But once Claude was confined to his wheelchair or crutches, we became his chauffeurs, running buddies, duck and dove retrievers and all-around gophers. I helped him with his physical therapy in the swimming pool a few times. In exchange, Claude let us hang out with him, let us make mix tapes from his record collection, etc etc etc. This was at the beginning of the “Outlaw Country” era, and Claude Marshall and Mike Ellis taught me to love that music. Stan and I were marching band and choir geeks; Claude was a semi-rich guy with some money. Remember, he was 12 years older. It seemed like a good deal at the time.

That’s all you need to know to appreciate this story. I’m going to tell it the way that Stan told it to me. I’m sure that I’m going to get some of the details wrong. If anyone in Drew Mississippi wants to correct or improve on this, please use the comment field.

One day in the middle of winter, Stan and Claude were going down the Sunflower River in a fishing boat, ambushing ducks. It was freezing cold. Claude was in the front of the boat with a shotgun and Stan was running the outboard motor. I don’t know the reason why, but Claude decided it was his turn to drive.

Imagine a paraplegic in full wintertime camouflage trying to get from the front of a metal fishing boat to the back. It was a doomed idea to begin with, and it was complicated by all the guns. Ever since the accident, Claude had become a little bit paranoid. Maybe he felt helpless without the full use of his legs. Most of the time he was armed with an amazing array of guns, ammo, and knives, and that was just for riding around town. I remember thinking that he looked like a cross between Franklin Roosevelt and Pancho Villa.

When Claude had scooted about halfway down the length of the fishing boat, one of his guns went off. The bullet entered one of his legs, and left a heck of an exit wound. The exit wound was nowhere near as bad as the entry wound the bullet made in the hull of the boat. Yes, Claude Marshall had shot himself AND the boat. Because of his paralysis and various pain medications, the gunshot wound didn’t bother Claude very much. Stan started freaking out because the boat was taking on water.

Once Claude got shot, they abandoned the plan to change drivers, turned the boat around, and headed toward the pickup and boat trailer which were about two miles away.

They were bailing as fast as they could but the boat was taking on more and more water. They started throwing out ballast. They threw out the ice chest. They got rid of the seat cushions. They got rid of some fishing poles and paddles and tackle boxes, and they threw out the extra gas tank. They were still taking on water.

When they were about halfway to the truck, Stan looked down at his remaining fuel tank, the one hooked to the motor. The needle was banging on empty, which was enough for Stan to imagine that the engine was starting to sputter. Various obscenities were shouted at the heavens. The motherhood of all gas tanks was questioned. Stan turned the boat around and went back to try to find the gas tank they’d just thrown overboard.

Fortunately, the tank had a half inch of air in the top and was bobbing in the current when they got back to it. Stan fished it out, swapped the tanks, and then made another effort to get back to the truck. In the meantime, they were both wet up to their thighs and were freezing.

Stan finally got them back to the truck. He backed the trailer into the water and started winching the boat (with Claude in it) onto the trailer. Once that was done, Stan had to figure out a way to get Claude into the pickup.

“Hell, don’t worry about me,” Claude said. “I can ride back here. Just get me to the hospital.”
Stan didn’t feel right about it, but he got in the truck, turned up the heat, and pulled the boat and Claude Marshall LaMastus up the riverbank. Once they got onto paved roads, Stan pulled over and suggested they stop at someone’s house, someone who might help get Claude into the cab.

Claude refused. So Stan got back in the truck and pulled Claude and the boat (in sub-freezing weather) all the way to the Ruleville hospital. Stan claimed there was ice in Claude’s beard by the time they got there. I can imagine the looks they got going down Highway 49, looking like a “Field & Stream” Christmas Parade Float.

When they got to the Emergency Room entrance, which had a loading dock, Stan removed the outboard motor from the boat, and backed the boat straight to the dock so they could unload Claude.

Stan said he hung around the Emergency Room for a little while, figuring they’d want to ask him some questions. Nobody ever did.

It was the Mississippi Delta. They’d seen it all before.

A few years after this happened, Stan Norwood was killed in an automobile accident between Drew and Memphis.
This afternoon I got word that Claude Marshall LaMastus was killed in a one car accident on the Drew/Merigold road.
Our world is now a much less interesting, much less colorful place. But if there’s a heaven, Stan and Claude are now shooting at low-flying angels from The Pearly Gates. They know they can't hurt anybody; they just want to keep things interesting.
My thoughts are with the LaMastus family tonight.
This is a song I first heard in Claude’s record archives. Here’s Waylon:

Why I Am A Libertarian, Part 3, Childhood Reading Edition

Because of reconnecting with old friends on Facebook, I'm doing a series of posts about what makes someone go from political near-apathy to rabid Libertarian. I feel the need to explain myself.

Sarah Jean Cartledge (sp?), my fifth grade teacher at North Sunflower Academy, required us to read Harold Keith's "Rifles For Watie".

It's the story of a kid named Jeff who goes to fight for the Union army during the Civil War. Jeff is eventually asked to infiltrate the enemy lines and become a spy inside the Confederate army. Here's a section that describes Jeff's first Confederate payday:

"....each trooper received a month's salary, too. Jeff looked curiously at the crisp, new green banknotes, two fives and five ones.
"Know what I'm going to buy first?" Jeff said to Hooley, later. "There's a man selling ginger cakes up on the street. I'm going to buy me a whole dollar's worth. Come on, Hooley, I'll buy you a chunk, too."
Promptly they found the vendor. He was a big, bare-headed fellow, who had built himself an oven in the hillside next to the town blacksmith. He was standing behind a three-foot square of freshly baked brown gingerbread, fanning the flies off it with one hand. The hot, sweet smell was overpowering. Jeff slid off Flea Bite (his horse).
"Give us a dollar's worth of that," Jeff said, waving his one-dollar bill proudly.
The vendor extended his dirty hand, plucked the bank note away, laid it on the square of gingerbread and, cutting around it neatly with his bowie knife, hewed off a piece exactly the size of the bank note and handed it to the surprised Jeff. Then he pocketed the bill. Thus Jeff learned for the first time of the weak buying power of Confederate paper money.
Hooley laughed uproariously as Jeff broke off half his small piece and handed it to him. Jeff grinned ruefully. "I guess that's what Pa meant when he told me once that money is the measure of value."

When I read this in the early 1971, bread sold for .25 cents per loaf. The idea of only getting a dollar bill-sized piece of bread in exchange for a greenback seemed ridiculous.
I don't know why, but that passage from "Rifles For Watie" has always stuck with me.

Flash forward to the year 2009. Take a one dollar bill into Starbuck's and see how much bread or pastry it will buy.
Is it because bread is scarce? Is there a huge demand driving the price up?
Nope.
It's because our government is financing its goofy-assed spending habits by printing money.

With the exception of the Ron Paul splinter of the Daddy Party, the Libertarians are the only ones who have consistently protested against this kind of taxation without legislation.

Jeff couldn't buy very much bread with his paycheck because the Confederate government was financing almost everything with printing presses instead of silver and gold. (Plus, most outsiders knew that the Confederacy was doomed.) Today, a Confederate one-dollar bill has no value to anyone but collectors.

So keep saving U.S. dollar bills. In 140 more years, if people start collecting them, they might once again be worth what they were in 1971.

But in the meantime, don't plan on buying very much bread with them.

Audit The Fed. Sign up here.

Money supply chart came from here.

Why I Am A Libertarian, Part 1

Since I've reconnected with a lot of old friends on Facebook, a lot of them have followed the links to this site asked the same question: "Ummm.....Allen, what the hell got into you?"

It's a long story. I'm going to start throwing up a post every couple of weeks about the things that have opened my eyes and that have attracted me to the Libertarian Party. Here goes.

I grew up on a rice farm.

When I was five years old, my Uncle I.G. got me a pair of rubber boots and a small shovel for Christmas. I was delighted. My father and uncle walked around in irrigated rice fields wearing their rubber boots and doing things with shovels. I felt like a man. I had the boots. I could move earth.

Three or four years later, when I was old enough to accomplish something with a shovel while wearing rubber boots, I wasn't nearly as pleased. I decided that getting my first boots and shovel probably wasn't a true coming of age moment.

But for almost 15 years, I had the privilege or riding around in a pickup, shoveling mud, repairing tractors, and listening to the anti-government rants of my father. I would give anything for recordings of those diatribes.

These were Daddy's most popular topics:

1) All government programs, products, or policies are grossly inferior to those produced by "real" people. This was especially true for the Federal government, which hadn't gotten anything right since Jefferson died. My father even called Daylight Savings Time by it's true name. Government Time (as opposed to God's Time). I swear this is true.
If Drew Baptist Church hadn't traitorously switched back and forth from God's Time to Government Time every year, my father probably wouldn't have reset his watch.

2) As long as government officials are elected based on how much money they can raise for campaigns, government will be inherently corrupt. Therefore government's power should be minimized. (Doh ! I understood this at age eight. Why can't other people figure it out?)

3) Jimmy Carter's head was filled with cotton, cow manure, wool, lust, peanut shells, Andrew Young's old underwear, and faulty circuits from Navy submarines.

4) U.S. News & World Report was the greatest periodical since The Apostle Paul put down the quill and was beheaded. When USN&WR appeared in our mailbox, Daddy would sometimes read the back page editorial, tear it out, and drive it to whichever tractor I was driving at the time. There were a few things he felt like I needed to know immediately. The general slant of these editorials is summarized nicely in points 1 through 3.

5) This is a bible passage from 1 Samuel, Chapter 8, verses 11-20, and I can't believe I haven't blogged it before. In this section, Israel has asked to have a King, since all the other kids got to have one. This is Samuel , speaking for God, about the pitfalls of having a strong ruler. (It's funny how God seldom spoke to large groups.) My old man could quote this backwards and forwards:

11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.
16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.
19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us;
20 That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.

Remember the good old days, when warnings that the government would take ONE TENTH !!! were terrifying?

Verse 16 would make a great motto for an employment agency, wouldn't it?

The next post in this series will be a Thomas Sowell-esque rant about government intentions vs. farmer incentives for terraced rice fields. It's more interesting than it sounds. I promise.